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A Car-Tune Portrait

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A Car-Tune Portrait
Directed byDirection:
Dave Fleischer
Director of animation:
David Tendlar
Story byUncredited story by:
Dave Fleischer
Isadore Sparber
and
David Tendlar
Produced byMax Fleischer
StarringFeaturing the voice talent of:
David Ross as the band leader (uncredited)
Music byMusical supervisor:
Lou Fleischer (uncredited)
Musical arrangement:
King Ross
Animation byCharacter animation:
David Tendlar
Nicholas Tafuri
Herman Cohen (uncr.)
William Sturm (uncr.)
Eli Brucker (uncr.)
Joe Oriolo (uncr.)
Jack Rabin (uncr.)[1]
Color processTechnicolor (3-strip, credited on the original issue)
Production
company
Distributed byParamount Pictures
Release date
  • June 26, 1937 (1937-06-26)
Running time
7 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish

A Car-Tune Portrait is a cartoon in the color Classics series produced by Fleischer Studios.[2] Released on June 26, 1937,[3] the cartoon gives an imaginative take on Franz Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2.

Plot

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After the brief opening credits set to an orchestrated version of the Minuet in G by Ludwig van Beethoven, the cartoon introduces a lion who is dressed as a musical conductor and attempts to keep his orchestra of animal musicians in order as they half-play and half-fight their way through the piece. Memorable moments include a dachshund playing the xylophone with his back legs while the rest of him sleeps, a group of monkeys using a flute as a pea-shooter to fire at their fellow musicians, and a horse trombonist who attempts to swat a fly with his trombone, but only succeeding in hitting the dog trumpeter in front of him.

In keeping with the building frenzy of Liszt's rhapsody, the animals become more and more violent, playing pranks on each other and generally wreaking havoc, but the piece still goes on. The final scenes see the lion conductor getting smashed over the head with a giant bass drum, at which point he gives in, the music finishes, and the cartoon ends.

Similar cartoons

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Other cartoons with similar plots include the Oscar-nominated shorts, Rhapsody in Rivets and The Magic Fluke; an Oscar-winning short, The Cat Concerto; a Merrie Melodie short, Rhapsody Rabbit with Bugs Bunny; a Woody Woodpecker short, convict Concerto, with a story by Hugh Harman; and a Looney Tunes short, Daffy's Rhapsody.

See also

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References

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  1. ^ "Max Fleischer's A Car-Tune Portrait (1937)". cartoonresearch.com. May 11, 2016. Retrieved July 20, 2022.
  2. ^ Lenburg, Jeff (1999). The Encyclopedia of Animated Cartoons. Checkmark Books. pp. 66–67. ISBN 0-8160-3831-7. Retrieved 6 June 2020.
  3. ^ Cartoon Research entry
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